


Frenetic

by BlackBlood1872



Series: Torn at the Seams (TMA ficlets) [5]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Episode: e074 Fatigue (The Magnus Archives), Gen, Insomnia, Sleep Deprivation, The Spiral, nicer than canon but still a bit creepy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26585311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackBlood1872/pseuds/BlackBlood1872
Summary: A series of thoughts Michael, a Distortion, has regarding… a friend.A companion fic to MAG 74 Fatigue
Relationships: Lydia Halligan & Michael | The Distortion
Series: Torn at the Seams (TMA ficlets) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858171
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Frenetic

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I'm missing some tags but the only thing I can think to warn for is Spiral-typical mental nonsense. And maybe Michael being a bit creepy, but in a very... young/innocent sort of way? He's trying to make a friend but he's the Distortion, so... doesn't really work out well for the friend.

Michael has a friend. He thinks of her as a friend at least. She thinks he's a hallucination. Maybe he is, in her world. Maybe she is, in his. He isn't sure he cares.

She caught his attention years ago, before he was Michael, before he was anything as solid as he is now. She had so much trouble sleeping. She still does. It lets her see things the others can't, and reality warps under her gaze, peeling away at the edges. He visits her, now; in her flat, in the park, in the café that serves so many others with the potential to see like she does. He only talks to her, though. The others can wait. They can't see his world, yet.

She doesn't mind that he doesn't quite fit into the constraints of a basic human body, too thin, too sharp, hands not quite right. Never comments on the grass he shreds with a careless twitch, the patterns he tries to weave falling apart into meaningless pieces. He watches her draw similar patterns, feels himself drawn into them, the narrow passageways and swirling edges.

He feels a kinship with her, sometimes. Imagines what it would be like to bring her into his fold, to add another face to the Distortion's incorrect form. They would become closer to what the Twisted One was meant to be, before it was lost.

(Maybe this is why Helen still roams his hallways. He is waiting, but he isn't sure what for. Doesn't know if he is waiting for her to grow tiresome, waiting for the chance to digest her properly. Or if he wishes to subsume her; Janus the two-faced.)

He laughs, sometimes, around Lydia. Her nose bleeds but she doesn't tell him to stop, to leave. She apologizes for being a poor host, but he tells her not to worry. She is much better than others. So much more polite. He enjoys their time spent together, sharing with her the lies of the world, their perception mingling at their edges, overlapping in the brief moments before true lucidity. She sees what he sees and he sees what she sees and reality warps to show it all at once, layers over layers, interweaving, oil in water.

She wakes, usually, before they can truly become. Her self pulled away and back to the form of reality she knew before this, the world she desperately scours for comfort. Adrenaline crashing through her mind, a rush that screeches when it collides with that which twists, when it scrapes along the edges of nonsensicality. The chance to merge will come again when she returns to the precipice of sleep, ever elusive. Sooner and sooner each time.

She will fall, one day, one way or the other. Perhaps it is selfish of him to hope that she falls into them. Perhaps it is only awaiting the inevitable.


End file.
